


the darkness has not overcome it.

by MovesLikeBucky



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, Inspired by Fanart, Introspection, M/M, Metaphysical Metaphors for Sadness and Anger, Post-Scene: The Bandstand (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27861998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MovesLikeBucky/pseuds/MovesLikeBucky
Summary: An angel stands alone at a bandstand, the world descends into darkness.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 69





	the darkness has not overcome it.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mirach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirach/gifts).



> This is based on [this beautiful and haunting art by Mirach over on tumblr](https://mirach.tumblr.com/post/636490200344854528/aziraphale-still-standing-in-the-bandstand-hours); it grabbed me by the brain and wouldn't let go until I let some words out!
> 
> Title is from John 1:5: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
> 
> EDIT: This beautiful art is [now also here on ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26327167/chapters/68209797)!! Go show Mirach some love! <3

_Come back._

Aziraphale stands, frozen still.His feet won’t let him move, won’t let him start walking home.Twilight had been on the horizon when he’d arrived, golden hour just past, darkness settling on the world for what would be the last time.The darkening world is not silent, no.That would be a kindness, and the world it seems has run out of kindnesses for Aziraphale.The squirrels still chitter, the trees creak and groan.Occasionally a woodpigeon will take flight, and the sound of feathers will make him jump; hope flooding his soul before disappointment sets it.It isn’t him.

_Please come back._

He holds it all in, pushes it down.He’s been doing that for millennia now, what’s one more day?One more day of pretending that Crowley doesn’t matter.That it’s all convenience.That the demon is not his North Star, the pulse of his days and his nights, the very blood that beats through these too human veins.He thinks of Crowley’s retreating back, of the hurt crack in his voice.He pushes the sadness down.Not now, not here.

_Have a nice doomsday._

Aziraphale had been cruel, much crueler than intended.How could Crowley ever understand?He Fell so long ago (Aziraphale has been falling slowly).The terror and the fear surround Aziraphale and wrap him in their dark tendrils, gripping onto his heart and his soul, squeezing until it feels like he is dying.Is this what the humans call heartbreak?If so, it is no wonder to him why some succumb and die for it.His efforts fail, a tear rolls down his cheek.

_Go off together?Listen to yourself._

He replays his own words over and over, his coldness and his callousness, turned and directed at Crowley in this, the final day.The last of their time together.He’d never wanted it to end like this, never like this.The tears fall in earnest, his hold on himself slips.The pain and the anger and all of the rest of it — raw emotion glowing gold in the dim moonlight. 

_We’re not friends!_

He falls to his knees, supplication in this bandstand, on the altar of what might have been.His breath is in heaving gasps.He doesn’t need to breathe.He _needs_ to breathe.Hiccoughing sobs escape his throat, pinprick circles of darkness on the pavement where his tears land.“We’re not friends because we are so much more than that,” he sobs quietly, confessing to the concrete and the steel; to the woodpigeons and the squirrels and the creaking trees, “Can you not see how deeply I love you?Can you not see how I wish this were different?”He strikes the ground with his fist, loss of control in the face of this agony causing the cement to splinter under his hand.“Come back…” he begs, but he begs to no one.No one is here to hear.

_Please, I love you._

The words he didn’t say are his company until day breaks.His tears are the soundtrack to his long night in the dim and damp night of London.The sun breaks over the horizon as his tears run out.He stumbles back to his feet, brushes the dirt and the dust off himself.His heart is heavy, burdened with a relentless sadness that claws and snarls, tries to pull him under into it’s grief.There will be time for grief later, for now there is work to do.And once that work is done, if Crowley would still have him, he resigns himself to stop running.To stop avoiding the things he wants.

Aziraphale takes a deep breath, pushes down the glow that radiates from his bones, and he steps forward into daylight.


End file.
